LITMIR.BIZ

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for a look at her. Or maybe not. Even closing in on seventy, she kind of blows me away.”

      Levi chuckled. Elbows resting on wide-slung knees, he flipped open the entertainment section of the Trib. “Not possible.”

      A warm breeze rustled the edges of the paper and teased through the strands of his dark hair. Elise leaned into the right side of Levi’s broad back, felt the vibration of his gruff, “Nice,” against her cheek where it rested on his shoulder.

      Closing her eyes, she told herself to just take this moment. To hold on to it for the beautiful simplicity it offered and not to let the panicked emotions pushing at her throat free. Not to give in to those thoughts fast on the rise that were suddenly demanding to know what she was going to do when Levi left.

      Because somehow, against all her best intentions, in spite of all her defenses, she’d gone and fallen in love with him.

      She was over her head, and getting deeper every minute … even knowing that every day was one day closer to the one where he left town for good.

      Suddenly it was all too much. The loan, the studio, her parents, her future, and the one thing that felt so totally right on the cusp of being over. Her head spun and her stomach seized. The open air around her turning thick and stale in her throat.

      She jerked to her feet, stumbled back.

      “Elise?” Levi was on his feet reaching for her as she desperately fumbled her keys.

      Get inside. She had to—

      Too late. Her stomach heaved and she lunged for the trash bin.

      Inside, Levi wrung cool water into the sink and then pressed the washcloth to the back of Elise’s neck where she sat on the side of the tub, head bowed.

      “I’m fine, Levi. Completely better now, though I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from the humiliation of you seeing me get sick. And in public.”

      “Glad you’re recovered.” Only not really. Staring down at Elise’s slender back, the silky curls tied out of her face, and the delicate hands pressed against her eyes, Levi would have felt a hell of a lot better if Elise were still hugging the porcelain bowl, cursing a sketchy breakfast sandwich consumed some time in the last few hours. But no, the nausea that hit her out of nowhere was gone as quickly as it had come. And the only reason she was still sitting in here was because Levi hadn’t let her up yet.

      He needed a minute.

      Not because he couldn’t handle the sight of a woman vomit. Courtesy of his mother, he’d been hardened to that at an early age. So seeing Elise pitch at the park was about as close to old home week as he got. The only thing missing was the sinus-burning fumes of cheap liquor in the mix.

      No, what had Levi’s gut wringing harder than the cloth in his hands was the short list of reasons women were suddenly, violently sick to their stomachs. Without a fever.

      Yeah, Levi had definitely needed a minute.

      To do some math. To think back … very carefully … and come up with a whole lot of holy hell. He couldn’t recall more than two nights at a stretch they hadn’t seen each other. In over a month.

      Catching sight of himself in the battered rectangle of mirror above Elise’s single bathroom sink, Levi tried to rearrange his features into a mask of something that at least resembled calm. It wasn’t working.

      Tossing the washcloth into the sink, he stalked out of the bathroom before Elise could get a look at him.

      “Levi?” Elise sounded tense behind him.

      Because she wasn’t sure how he’d take her blowing the contents of her stomach in front of him?

      Or because she had something she hadn’t been ready to tell him … and she’d just given him a very big clue.

      Gripping the back of the couch in the front room, Levi stared at the window, seeing nothing beyond. Just feeling the slow press of the walls around him. An incremental tightening of his skin.

      God, it couldn’t be that.

      “Levi, I don’t know what to say. I’m really embar—”

      He turned, staring hard at her. “Are you pregnant?”

      “What?” Confusion flashed in those guileless gray eyes. Confusion followed close by horror. “You think because I—” Her hands waved in a small churning circle. “No— Oh, my God, no.” Her shock was genuine. No one could fake that level of stunned distress—or at least Elise couldn’t.

      “No. I can’t be.”

      That was the answer he’d been hoping for. Only between that breath and the next, Elise’s eyes lost their conviction and her face went pale.

      Damn it.

      “Let’s just start simple. When was your last period?” This wasn’t the kind of conversation he typically had with his dates. But then most of his dates barely registered as more than a blip on the radar. And no, it wasn’t that he didn’t think they could get pregnant because he only slept with them once or twice. It was more that the kind of women he generally went out with tended toward the more sexually practiced. So in addition to his religious condom use, there was typically another form of birth control in play. The pill. The patch. An IUD. Something.

      But Elise. She didn’t have the kind of lifestyle where she was looking to be prepared just in case something came up. Which meant the condoms he’d been packing were flying solo. And they weren’t one-hundred-percent effective.

      A small furrow dug between Elise’s eyes as she pinched the bridge of her nose with one hand, using the other apparently to count on her fingers. The muscles along his spine cranked tighter.

      “Aren’t you supposed to know this kind of thing?” he bit out, the words coming more harshly than intended.

      A rush of pink surged up Elise’s neck and into her cheeks, making him feel like an ass of the worst variety. But this was important. For both of them.

      “Okay, let me help you out here. Before you met me or after?” There were only two options; how could she not know? “Elise.”

      “Just give me a minute.” Her voice had taken on a frantic edge to match the one cutting through his gut that very moment. “My cycle sometimes skips and honestly I don’t always pay a lot of attention to it.”

      His vision tunneled. “You don’t pay attention to it?”

      “No, Levi. I don’t. It’s never been particularly reliable and, aside from the fact that I have just a few other things going on in my life, before you, I hadn’t had sex in over a year. So no! I hadn’t paid it much attention lately.”

      Unreliable.

      His sanity clung to the concept like a lifeline as one breath filled his lungs, and then the next. His heart slammed, pushing blood in a rush too fast through a system already jacked on fear and dread.

      “Before.” She looked up at him with a little-girl-lost stare too vulnerable for the place he was at. “It was definitely before.”

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

      ELISE sat in the corner of the couch, her legs drawn up close to her body with her arms wrapped tight around them. Holding herself together. Or trying to, anyway.

      It had been about six weeks since her last period. And though she’d told Levi it wasn’t the first time she’d been that late, the information seemed to have pushed him past his limit nonetheless. She’d watched, helpless, as he walked from the apartment without a word, leaving her alone in a way she hadn’t been since the day she met him.

      Brows pressed against her knees, she breathed deep.

      She couldn’t be pregnant—couldn’t

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